Dove nixes 'Armpit of America' billboard in NJ

Dove has decided it will no longer run a billboard advertisement that used the expression in a deodorant/antiperspirant campaign to encourage women to treat their underarms with more care and attention.

The dubiously crafted advertisement showed a woman with her armpit exposed next to the title: “Dear New Jersey, when people call you ‘the Armpit of America,’ take it as a compliment. Sincerely, Dove.”

A spokeswoman for Dove, a brand owned by Unilever, which has its North American headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, noted that the “Dear Armpit” campaign was much broader than the New Jersey ad, and was designed to encourage women to pay the same attention to their armpits as they do the rest of the body.

The New Jersey ad was set to run later in the year, but the company said Monday – after a couple of questioning media stories on the campaign — that it won’t run.

“Our intent with the ‘Dear New Jersey’ ad was to call attention to the fact that armpits can and should be considered beautiful, and asks women everywhere to accept this as something that is OK,” Matthew McCarthy, senior marketing director of antiperspirants and deodorants at Unilever, said in a prepared statement.